A local healthcare group was able to turn a deficit into a surplus this past year.
Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare presented its year-end financial results at its monthly board meeting Wednesday. For the year ending March 31, the hospital was able to produce a surplus of $2-million. This comes after a deficit of $1.4-million was worked into the budget last year.
Marie Campagna, HDGH's chief financial officer and vice-president of corporate services and new business development, says staff worked hard to make sure that certain aspects of financial management worked out better than expected.
"The main reason for it is some of the assumptions we made were turned around but primarily, we had a focused effort on managing that deficit we were anticipating," says Campagna.
One key factor in managing the deficit was overtime. The board reported that in the year ending March 31, overtime was down by less than $94,000, though it was still over budget by $266,000. Campagna says that was caused by a sudden increase in overtime pay in the last quarter of the budget year.
"Throughout the year we were making some excellent progress," says Campagna. "It was in the last quarter where we were making some changes that we couldn't fill positions, so we had vacant positions. That's what caused the overtime to go up."
Campagna says the hospital is striving for ways to be financially responsible and is hopeful the trend will continue.
The board also approved Wednesday an updated plan for offering services in French. Bilingual services in hospitals is a legislative requirement, but HDGH Chief Human Resources Officer Mary Benson-Albers says the updated plan goes the extra mile to help Francophone patients and visitors.
"Anything from signage to offering the ability to receive services in French, how we answer our phones, what our forms look like in terms of being bilingual," says Benson-Albers.
It was not known immediately how many staff members speak fluent French, but the updated plan identifies staff members who are bilingual. The update also calls for the hospital website to have a French version and a way to identify patients and staff who speak French.
In one other development, HDGH vice-president of external affairs Bill Marra reported that a walkathon last Saturday in Tecumseh raised at least $22,000 for the hospital's Cardiac Wellness and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program. The walk was in honour of Tecumseh town councillor Mike Rohrer, who died suddenly of a heart attack last May 28 at age 45. Marra says that figure came without the help of corporate sponsors.